ARTICLE | Translation in Brief
Tapping malaria for TB
GSK's open-access drug screening program could lead to a new TB drug
November 5, 2015 8:00 AM UTC
Academic researchers in Seattle have found a compound that could treat tuberculosis in chemical libraries from GlaxoSmithKline plc (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK). The group teamed up with GSK's Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation to screen compounds originally designed to treat malaria and identified a molecule that kills Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) by a different mechanism than existing antibiotics but with no less potency.
The project was led by David Sherman, professor at the Center for Infectious Disease Research. He thought GSK's large chemical libraries of antifolate compounds that inhibit the dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) enzyme of Plasmodium, but were never tested in malaria, might be repurposed for TB...